Paul Laurence Dunbar

Fling out your banners, your honors be bringing,
Raise to the ether your paeans of praise
Strike every chord and let music be ringing
Celebrate freely this day of all days

I know a little country place Where still my heart doth linger, And o'er its fields is every grace Lined out by memory's finger
Back from the lane where poplar grew And aspens quake and quiver, There stands all bath'd in summer's glow A farm ...

If I could but forget The fullness of those first sweet days,
When you burst sun-like thro' the haze Of unacquaintance, on my sight,
And made the wet, gray day seem bright While clouds themselves grew fair to see
And since, no day i...

I have seen peoples come and go Alike the Ocean'd ebb and flow;
I have seen kingdoms rise and fall Like springtime shadows on a wall
I have seen houses rendered great That grew from life's debased estate,
And all, all, all is change...

Ah,
Douglass, we have fall'n on evil days,
Such days as thou, not even thou didst know,
When thee, the eyes of that harsh long ago Saw, salient, at the cross of devious ways,

I am the mother of sorrows,
I am the ender of grief;
I am the bud and the blossom,
I am the late-falling leaf

A hush is over all the teeming lists,
And there is pause, a breath-space in the strife;
A spirit brave has passed beyond the
And vapors that obscure the sun of life